http://www.axiapublishers.com/ojs/index.php/labyrinth/issue/feedLabyrinth2018-10-05T16:25:24-04:00Prof. Dr. Yvanka B. Raynovalabyrinth@axiapublishers.comOpen Journal Systems<p><em>Labyrinth</em> is the journal of the <a href="http://www.iaf.ac.at" target="_blank">Institute for Axiological Research / Institut für Axiologische Forschungen</a> (Vienna), and is published since 1999. From 1999 till 2002 it was an on-line journal and appeared thereafter in printed volumes. It is actually both, a <em>printed academic journal</em>, available for purchase, and an electronic <em>open access journal</em>. All past issues will be in near future fully availble in the archives.</p><p>As a nonpartisan philosophical and interdisciplinary journal <em>Labyrinth</em> is engaged in publication of high quality peer-reviewed academic articles, critical essays, interviews and book reviews. Although it is focused on philosophy and on axiology, i.e. on the philosophy and theory of values and their sociocultural contexts, it is also open to related issues in all fields of the humanities and the social sciences with a special emphasis on critical thinking, social controversies and conflict resolution, interfaith dialogue, intercultural and cross-cultural communication, gender studies and managing diversity.</p><p>Individuals may buy the printed edition at <a title="amazon" href="https://www.amazon.de/dp/3903068225" target="_blank">Amazon</a> and many other (online) bookstores. Libraries may use the right of 30% reduced rate by contacting our partner <a title="KNV" href="http://www.knv.de/impressum.html" target="_blank">KNV</a>.</p>http://www.axiapublishers.com/ojs/index.php/labyrinth/article/view/115The Origins of Laruelle's Non-Philosophy in Ravaisson's Understanding of Metaphysics2018-09-20T17:00:36-04:00Vincent Leeditors@axiapublishers.com<p>Laruelle's first book <em>Phenomenon and Difference: An Essay on Ravaisson's Ontology </em>(1971) is unanimously overlooked as having little relevance to his later non-philosophy. On the contrary, this paper analyses Laruelle's dissertation and Ravaisson's writings to show how Ravaisson enables Laruelle to develop non-philosophy's three central ideas of decision, radical immanence, and cloning. Firstly, Laruelle inherits Ravaisson's critique of Platonism and anti-Platonism as dividing the unity of being between two terms, of which one alone is conflated with being to the detriment of the other as non-being. Moreover, Laruelle follows Ravaisson's third way of envisioning being as a radical immanence, which philosophy presupposes to constitute its dualisms by dividing being into opposed terms. Finally, Laruelle's cloning adheres to Ravaisson's eclectic method of expressing being's true immanence through his cohering of all philosophies, as well as disciplines like art and religion, into a single narrative of one and the same being's self-unfolding. </p>2018-09-20T17:00:36-04:00Copyright (c) 2018 Vincent Lehttp://www.axiapublishers.com/ojs/index.php/labyrinth/article/view/116Religious Pluralism within the Limits of Thought2018-09-20T17:00:36-04:00John M. Allisoneditors@axiapublishers.com<p>There is an <em>aporia </em>to finitude: if I am limited as a finite being, I cannot know what the limits of my finitude are, because if I knew what those limits are, then I would have transcended them. I refer to this <em>aporia </em>as the "hard problem of finitude," interpreted through Graham Priest's work on inclosure paradoxes. Here I offer an interpretation of François Laruelle's theory of the Philosophical Decision in terms of his attempt to resolve this <em>aporia </em>through his suspension of standard philosophy's form of ontological dualism. Next, I apply non-standard philosophy to the problem of religious pluralism, presenting a novel theory of "standard religion" and the "Hierophanic Decision" through a non-standard reading of Mircea Eliade's philosophy of religion, and end by pointing towards what a consistently performative and finite form of religious pluralism might look like from within the "democracy-of-thought," here rendered as the "parliament of religions."</p>2018-09-20T17:00:36-04:00Copyright (c) 2018 John M. Allisonhttp://www.axiapublishers.com/ojs/index.php/labyrinth/article/view/117Non-philosophical mystique and the rehabilitation of heresis2018-09-20T17:00:37-04:00Eleni Lorandoueditors@axiapublishers.com<p><em>In the second part of the Triptych, </em>Mystique non-philosophique à l'usage des contemporains<em>, François Laruelle puts to the test of "non-philosophy" the field of phenomena that are termed as "religious" whether Christian, Judaic or Gnostic. Non-philosophical mystique is born in the spirit of heresy rather than sanctity. It springs from the effort to join Man with himself rather than with God founding the radical cause of the new Logos in the One-in-One. Man is emptied from his identity, becomes a Christ-subject who comes to fight for the World. Future mystique ends as the amorous knowledge, an erotic a priori constitutive of the mystical subject: it is not an illusory transformation of Man or a revision of his relation to God or the World. The final aim – as I will try to show – is to transfigure the heretical experience, mystical as well as erotic of the human such as it becomes capable of a form of unison with itself as unique Other.</em></p>2018-09-20T17:00:37-04:00Copyright (c) 2018 Eleni Lorandouhttp://www.axiapublishers.com/ojs/index.php/labyrinth/article/view/118Non-Theurgy: Iamblichus and Laruelle2018-09-20T17:00:37-04:00Stanimir Panayotoveditors@axiapublishers.com<p><em>Mysticism, theurgy, non-philosophy: this text will experiment with the three in an attempt to perform a non-philosophical hijacking of so-called theurgy (theurgia). I will experiment with a comparison between Iamblichus' theurgy, Laruelle's non-philosophy, and the notion of the Vision-in-One. I claim their point of convergence is their allegiances to the theory of the One, derived from Plato's Unwritten Doctrines. The ancient notion of the One is subject to a similar procedural gesture in both Iamblichus and Laruelle, namely, the procession of the One from the noematic to the aesthetic realm. What connects them is their rejection of the theory that the soul's descension from the One to the visible realm represents a degeneration of the Nous. In a concept akin to the very idea of theurgy, Laruelle proposes his Vision-in-One, which is to think from the One rather than the One. The Vision-in-One is an attempt to materialize the disembodied fate of the noema against realistic skepticism. </em></p><p> </p>2018-09-20T17:00:37-04:00Copyright (c) 2018 Stanimir Panayotovhttp://www.axiapublishers.com/ojs/index.php/labyrinth/article/view/119Non-Philosophy and the uninterpretable axiom2018-09-20T17:00:38-04:00Ameen Mettawaeditors@axiapublishers.com<p><em>This article connects François Laruelle's non-philosophical experiments with the axiomatic method to non-philosophy's anti-hermeneutic stance. Focusing on two texts from 1987 composed using the axiomatic method, "The Truth According to Hermes" and "Theorems on the Good News," I demonstrate how non-philosophy utilizes structural mechanisms to both expand and contract the field of potential models allowed by non-philosophy. This demonstration involves developing a notion of interpretation, which synthesizes Rocco Gangle's work on model theory with respect to non-philosophy with Laruelle's critique of hermeneutics. I use Alexander Galloway's interpretation of "The Truth According to Hermes" as a case study of the limits non-philosophy sets upon its use as a basis for philosophical models, in contrast to arguments by Gangle regarding non-philosophy's greater genericity in comparison to philosophy.</em></p><p><em> </em></p>2018-09-20T17:00:38-04:00Copyright (c) 2018 Ameen Mettawahttp://www.axiapublishers.com/ojs/index.php/labyrinth/article/view/120Non-Standard Stainless: Laruelle, Inconsistency and Sense-impressions2018-09-20T17:00:38-04:00David Bremnereditors@axiapublishers.com<p><em>"Stains" can serve as a metaphor for the role allotted to meaninglessness not only by partisans of the deterritorializing force of "brute matter", but also by diagnosers of symbolic incompleteness. For both, the blindspot that will lead to the disturbance of a given regime of meaning must be determined through a smear or glitch which that regime cannot sublate: the mark of a Real stripped of systematising mediation. However, we argue that it is all too easy to allow the stringency of this Real to be undermined by the inflation in its name of merely contingent empirical instances. Such blockages to theoretical and artistic practice can be removed with the aid of the articulation of incompleteness and inconsistency implied by François Laruelle's conception of the Real as non-consistent but </em>hyper<em>complete "radical immanence". </em>À rebours<em> of Laruelle himself, different types of meaninglessness can then be distinguished, de-metaphorized, and conceptualized as "noise". </em></p><p> </p>2018-09-20T17:00:38-04:00Copyright (c) 2018 David Bremnerhttp://www.axiapublishers.com/ojs/index.php/labyrinth/article/view/121"L'âge de la non-philosophie": Martin Heidegger et François Laruelle2018-09-20T17:00:39-04:00Yvanka B. Raynovaeditors@axiapublishers.com<p align="center"><strong>"The Age of Non-Philosophy": Martin Heidegger and </strong><strong>François </strong><strong>Laruelle</strong></p><p align="center"> </p><p><em>In his lessons at the College of France, Merleau-Ponty noticed that something ended with Hegel and that we perhaps entered in an age of non-philosophy. This poses the question if philosophy is coming to an end or if it can be rebuild from within by retaining its essence. While Merleau-Ponty is trying to restore philosophy from the inside, Heidegger and Laruelle open two different paths of a non-philosophical thinking from the outside. The purpose of the article is to compare these two paths more in detail in order to show the radicality of Laruelle's undertaking, which aims not a </em>Verwindung<em> (recollection), nor an </em>Überwindung<em> (overcoming) of philosophy but its appropriation in a new unified theory of thought. The author's main these is that while Heidegger is recovering two different philosophical conceptions of identity by proposing a third one, quasi-philosophical, Laruelle is ela-borating a science of identity, which could be applied to philosophical and non-philosophical topcs.</em></p><p> </p>2018-09-20T17:00:39-04:00Copyright (c) 2018 Yvanka B. Raynovahttp://www.axiapublishers.com/ojs/index.php/labyrinth/article/view/122Adorno und Habermas im Vergleich: Vom Säkularismus zum Postsäkularismus?2018-09-20T17:00:39-04:00Karel Hlaváčekeditors@axiapublishers.com<p align="center"><strong>Adorno and Habermas: From Secularism to Post-Secularim? </strong></p><p align="center"> </p><p><em>The article </em><em>analyses the 'post-secular turn' in critical theory by comparing Jürgen Habermas' late philosophy with the philosophy of his predecessor Theodor W. Adorno. It poses the question to what extent can Habermas be seen as a post-secular theorist when setting his work against that of Adorno? Following Birgitte Schepelern Johansen, the author develop a concept of post-secularism as a move beyond the strict division between religion and non-religion, and apply the concept to the work of the two critical theorists in question. Finally, Adorno’s work is identified as a 'religious secularism’ and Habermas’ work as a 'post-secular secularism’. Thus, the author points out the ambivalence, which the alleged 'post-secular turn’ breeds, and suggest a reconsideration of the religious motives discovered in Adorno’s work.</em></p><p><em> </em></p>2018-09-20T17:00:39-04:00Copyright (c) 2018 Karel Hlaváčekhttp://www.axiapublishers.com/ojs/index.php/labyrinth/article/view/123A personalist versus a rationalist theory of virtues2018-10-05T16:25:24-04:00Susanne Mosereditors@axiapublishers.com<pre>The purpose of this article is to make visible Max Scheler's great contribution to philosophical research on virtues and values, and to re-integrate it into the current discourse. Christoph Halbig's marginal reference to Scheler provides a good opportunity for this. Since both authors pursue completely different objectives, the question arises as to how much of Halbig's approach to a theory of action can be reconciled with Scheler's personalist understanding of virtue. While Halbig seeks criteria for assessing the actions of others, Scheler points to the empowerment supplied by virtue itself. The author argues that Scheler already anticipated some ideas, which has led to a new awareness of virtues in contemporary psychology.<em> </em></pre>2018-09-20T17:00:40-04:00Copyright (c) 2018 Susanne Moser